Putting the Crew Together - The Keeper of Traken

Being that he was hard done by early in this run, I decided to address one of Tom Baker’s big moments. The big moment every Doctor has. His regeneration. From what I understand Baker’s end and Davison’s beginning is actually a trilogy starting with The Keeper of Traken which is a damn good idea. Why should an adventure end with a Doctor’s death, when you have the perfect story telling technique to have the bad guy win, yet the hero come back and right that wrong?

However, The Keeper of Traken also brings into stark relief the problem with my scattered approach to Who. Upon landing on Traken and meeting Tremas, I already know that this man will become the Master somehow.

Hello Charley, Goodbye Charley - Blue Forgotten Planet

Remember those points where the Doctor and companion go off and have adventures that we don’t need to see so the production skips them to give further writers the opportunity to use the pairing later? Those Moffat is so fond of scattering throughout his run? Big Finish dropped a major one for the Sixth Doctor and Charley with Blue Forgotten Planet.

On the one hand I was sort of amazed that Paper Cuts didn’t really address the Charley/Mila plot. Yes, Fisher made it obvious that she wasn’t Charley Proper, and that line at the end where she talks the fisherman out of joining them was very self obsessive Mila. But that was it. Which was fine because it gave Mila an adventure all of her own where everything was normal. Her and The Doctor needed a proper adventure without it being addressed. Here it shows that they’ve had many many more.

Paper Cuts

Paper Cuts is the audio story that basically derailed the entire project. I was that enthralled by the end of The Girl That Never Was that I decided to press on and finish Charley’s saga with the Doctor, not realising that the second to last one featured the Draconians from a Third Doctor story I’d not got round to. Abandoning my plans with Leela and Baker, I went back to Pertwee and made my way through Jo’s final season.

Charley takes a turn for the worst - Patient Zero

This is one I’ve been building towards the entire time. It was part of my decision to go with Charley instead of Evelyn. Way back when I first started with Big Finish, one of the earliest serials I listened to was Five and Peri in Mission of the Viyrans. It stood out from all those from that drive by being really out there, and I really wanted to listen to the sequel. That made the decision to start on the Eighth Doctor a no brainer.

That this ended up finally moving the Mystery of Charley on rather significantly gave even more resonance to this serial.

Come up Trumps - The Raincloud Man

The Raincloud Man is one of those stories that brings one of our protagonist's secrets into stark relief by having part of the episode deal with someone else in a similar situation. It's something New Who does quiet often now that we have long running storylines. Obviously it's Charley and her time with the Eighth Doctor we're dealing with here. It's still not addressed, but it's at a point where it’s got to be happening soon.

While I’ve mostly moaned in the last few serials that this isn’t being addressed, I feel The Raincloud Man hits the exact note in how not to. Mainly because it ends with Charley going far too far.

Daleks and Krotons - Two Big Finish outings

It's another duo as we press on with Six and Charley, and hope that somewhere we'll address the elephant that is Charley's time with the Eighth Doctor. We deal with two Classic enemies, the ever present Daleks, and the only seen once Krotons. It's an interesting pair.

Once More Into The Fiction - The Doomwood Curse

Slight change of plans. I'm going back to just Mondays for Who postings. Mainly because I caught myself up. Planet was delayed because I was watching it in the days before release, I haven't even started The Green Death yet. This was the plan for after Capaldi Season 2, so I just brought it forward. So for now we're with Six and Charley while I get some TV under my belt.

The Doomwood Curse seems to be a play on the idea in The Mind Robber, where we have fiction coming to life. Only instead of it being a little haphazard with its approach to fiction, we basically get a re-do of Dick Turpin. However, where the Second Doctor's trip just went straight out balls to wall 'we're now in the land of fiction', Big Finish offer more of science-y explanation. That of an alien race that doesn't understand fiction, and take it for fact by running it through a machine. A machine promptly destroyed by Charley and its nanites start changing everyone's minds to operate like characters from a gothic romance.